This section describes approaches that could be employed, but are not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or employed. Hence, unless explicitly specified otherwise, any approaches described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application, and any approaches described in this section are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Network devices use one or more addresses for identification in a data network, including for example a media access control (MAC) layer address for identification of the network device at the link layer, and an Internet Protocol (IP) address for identification at the IP network layer. Network devices include network switching devices, network controller devices, and network endpoint devices. Network switching devices (e.g., link layer switches, IP layer routers, etc.) and/or network controller devices (e.g., wireless controller devices) can store addresses of network endpoint devices as an index for storing reachability information, security and/or authentication, information, etc. Wired or wireless access devices (e.g., a Wi-Fi wireless network access point) can be implemented as stand-alone devices or part of a network switching device and/or network controller device.
Network endpoint devices are being developed (e.g., IOS8 devices from Apple, Inc.) to change their MAC layer address if the network endpoint devices roam from one Wi-Fi wireless network access point to another Wi-Fi wireless network access point.